Posted
by
CowboyNeal
on Friday July 25, 2003 @03:44AM
from the taking-the-computer-for-a-spin dept.

kraksmokr writes "Xenarc Technologies have introduced a cool new in-dash DIN-form-factor Car PC. It features built in hard drive, audio/video, and GPS, among other things. Estimated price will be about $1200. I can't even begin to list the possibilities for mobile computing bliss." I'm even more impressed that they can fit it into the dash than I am with in-dash CD changers. If you buy this thing, use it safely. None of us want auto PC users to end up in the same category as annoying cell phone users.

Actually, I got a P2 266 MHz running Windows 2000 to play DivX 5.02 at 11 fps... Sure, the videos were really 29.97 fps, but still... On my Athlon XP 1600+, I can play these videos with the Windows task manager telling me it's only using 10-20% of the CPU.

Yep. Especially in the days of Via Centaur this device is outright stupid. Using components from www.linitx.com I can rig the same thing for around 600$ assuming that 260$ will go for a motorolla GPS to hook up to the serial port.

Apparently the studly thing to do if you are a ricer type, is to have pr0n running on the video screens on the backs of your headrests. That way everybody you drive past can get either offended or dangerously distracted. I have personally seen this once, and there was also a news item about it.

Lol, reminds of the day a friend of mine got his videobeamer and I helped him installing it.

In lack of a proper display we used an old piece of sheet for testing. He lived in the 3rd floor of a huge building downtown and to check out the beamers performance we fired up some pron.

Everthing worked beautifully and then I left. When I was back on the street I found people hiding their kids and pedestrians being stunned by a 3x4m2 Pron-Projection on the building. The beast was transparent. That was really fun!;-)

Turns out that in order to pack a computer into a very small space you really need to worry about heat. This is why most notebook computers (which are larger than this case, and other very small cases) run much slower than their desktop equivalents, for instance I think that the Centrino package from Intel starts witha 1.2 GHz processor (low end), and that is a brand new product. Anyway, the low power consumption chips are from Transmeta (I think 933MHz at 6 Watts) and VIA (Eden at 600Mhz at 6 Watts, C3 1GHz at 10 Watts?). Using said chips gets you away from the need for Fans (useful for computers in living rooms) and that lets you goto small form factors.

For more information check out mini-itx [mini-itx.com] or the super small case offerings of casetronic or Morex. Both of Casetronic and Morex make at least one case that has the same physical dimensions as a car stereo. Keep in mind these cases typically require the 2.5" hard drives and "slim" CD/CDRW/DVD drives which drives up the overall cost of the system and limits performance.

With a car, fan sound is less of an annoyance than in an otherwise silent office of living room. A car already makes quite some noise. As long as the fan noise stays under the car noise, it's not a bother.

Maybe you'll say that modern luxury cars are actually more silent than a 'puter fan. I do not think that is true, except for the high end lexus, volvo and bmw. Those are always equipped with airc, so they need less ventilation because they can are cooled with cool air anyway.

Keep in mind that the Centrino is returning to the "does more per clock cycle" mantra as opposed to the P4's "Do less per clock cycle so you can clock it insanely fast" mantra.

P4 laptops are AT LEAST to 2.4 GHz, if not more.

Yes, not quite as fast as desktops, but still quite fast. Also, in a car PC, heat isn't as much of an issue, since you don't have to worry about the power consumption of a fan sucking up battery life. As someone else pointed out, unless you're driving a super-high-end BMW or Lexus or

'Bullitt.' A must-see for that long ride into the Vegas sunset. Then you have an excuse for the cop: "Sorry, officer? I was just practicing those stunts back there! I thought Bullitt was an educational film."

Before allowing a person to operate an in-dash computer system in a car, they should be able to show that their own brain has sufficient processing power to think, drive, and use the computer at the same time.

Same thing with cell phone users, that you must be able to talk and drive and the same time and walk and chew gum at the same time.

It's upsetting the $1,200 price-tag pays more for the compact-type computer than for the computer parts itself. I'd like to see a release of a more asthetic and powerful computer. Removing the CDROM would free up some room for upgrades and since many in-dash CD players are regular PC CDROMS some sort of uplink through that doesn't seem so farfetched.

You could always build your own using a EPIA-M (or other EPIA) motherboard/processor combo from VIA, a car-stereo sized case from Casetronic or Morex, and a "slim" CD/CDRW/DVD, and a 2.5" Harddrive (and ram). Alternatively, if you already have wireless networking in your garage, you could skip the optical drive and just transfer files to it that way. When I built my slightly larger "living room" PC I think I ended up spending about 600-700$, so I'ld expect to pay about that for a car stereo sized one.

And here's the link [casetronic.com]. Yes, it fits in your dashboard too.

$1200 is pretty steep, for just an underpowered small PC - it's probably an overpriced "industrial" board that's been repackaged, and I'm not sure the 266MHz box will play DVD's and run those funky xmms plugins quite as well as a GHz VIA board. When counting the cost of you're in-car PC, don't forget the touchscreen and tiny-LCD display either - typing's a bitch when you're driving.

this is all very well but is a pc what you want in your car? keyboard, mouse, tiny icons due to running on a small LCD? unless someone's released "Windows XP Car edition" or similar I really don't see this as all that useful - compared to say a navigation unit and an in car MP3 player. Or a PDA based system that has an OS that's in ROM and can be
Ubiquitous computing doesn't necesarily mean a *PC* is the best tool for the job. I don't fancy driving into the back of someone because I was trying to click on the MSN messenger icon...

Yeah a while back too. Since WINCE 3.0 Microsoft has had a AutoPC version including a memory card slot and the like. Clarion's current unit (around 2600 USD) has a Pentium MMX chip in it. This may seem underpowered, but consider it's only driving a display that is much smaller then a PocketPC's display.

Linux has been in this market for years. It all started with the embedded systems kernel. This is why Linux is so remarkable, because it has done many things it was not originally intended to do, and excelled at them through the genius of open source programmers. Linux could be comparable to *o*r*g, a custom OS with its own kernel a friend built. The point is, you have never heard of it. The same was at one time true for linux, and look at it now.

Freevo is a good start. It uses a very straight forward interface that has the most common functions that you are planning on using. Since it's open source, I'm sure you could modify it to have the menu options and programs you want to run on it. Its large font makes it easy to read on TVs and small LCDs alike.

http://freevo.sourceforge.net/

Sorry, I do think that Freevo lacks the MSN icon, so you may be out of luck there...:) better stick with winblows:)

this is all very well but is a pc what you want in your car? keyboard, mouse, tiny icons due to running on a small LCD? unless someone's released "Windows XP Car edition" or similar I really don't see this as all that useful

Let me guess: You're the guy who sits in meetings and says "who would want to buy that?"

Go fuck yourself.
I'm the guy who *buys* all this shit, and what it's taught me is that it may be new, it may make people on slashdot go "ooooooooooh" but that DOESN'T NECESSARILY MAKE IT PRACTICAL.
has it got an in-dash DIN sized display? an in-dash DIN-sized interface device? No. So what's the point of making it DIN sized? Just so people can see what you've blown all your money on instead of sticking it in the boot like your autochanger?

hell, if your even lazier than that, just make a webpage that can launch all that stuff. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing that you could write some funky html/activex/who knows what that could just launch from a full screen web browser. Point is, you got a plethera of programs out there, use them!

With wireless networking and PalmVNC, you could operate the in-dash computer via a PalmOS-compatible PDA. Imagine that this thing could be very powerful as a combination MP3 jukebox, satnav device, PVR -- toss a 7" monitor in the back seat of a SUV or minivan, which some manufacturers are starting to add in their luxury models, great for the kids -- and with USB ports, the thing could be useful to store files for your digital camera. Sure, some of these things (satnav/gps, MP3 playing) can be done by a PDA, but you're limited by the memory you can stuff into the PDA. A full PC, OTOH, can have hundreds of megs of RAM and hundreds of gigabytes of hard drive storage. That, and the fact that you can combine all those devices into one is going to save you space.

I run an aftermarket ECU in my car. I spend a great deal of time tuning and monitoring what's going on in my car - doing this with a laptop in the passenger seat SUX and also requires too much of my attention. I'm often reduced to datalogging and then perusing the logs to see what went on. This particular ECU, made by AEM, also allows me to create CUSTOM DASHBOARDS. I can create all sorts of nifty graphic gauges to monitor any of about 100+ different things going on with the car. Again, displaying these on

Go read Handhelds.org [handhelds.org] - Linux has been doing small screens for ages. Combine it with exisiting media apps like xmms and mplayer and you're a long way there already. Maybe WinXP isn't ideal, but there's plenty of other stuff that is. Try to think outside the windows your mind is trapped in.

I was a member of the Penn State FutureTruck [futuretruck.org] program this past year, which had 15 universities develop hybrid-electric Ford Explorers. I know several schools had in-dash PC's of some sort to provide entertainment, telemetry, and navigation functions.

PSU's system (picture here [psu.edu]) , which I wrote in Delphi, focused on entertainment, such as the MP3 player screen shown in the picture. The interface is fairly easy to navigate without requiring too much attention while driving. The display itself is a touch

Personally the Pentuim 266MMX is a little underpowered unless you just want an MP3 player or something along those lines. I personally think that taking the approach of what many high end car audio systems do(e.g. put the UI in the dash and the major hardware in the trunk) would have been a better approach. Having the audio, PCMCIA and the like in dash is great, but having a nice long(and heavily shielded) cable running to the trunk would be more effective because the space constraints aren't as big of a deal.

What are you looking to do? I have a PII266Mhz laptop that I use for everything. Wink2k, Office, Winamp, Netstumbler and dual boot into Gentoo and use Gimp, Evolution, Gaim. It's not super speedy but it's plenty fast for normal use.

I don't know...a 266MHz Intel with MMX...that sounds a lot like my personal computer here at home. It's the only machine we have and it works just fine. Sure it's a little slow at times but it's perfectly adequate.

We always run two X sessions so my wife and I can fast user switch between our desktops. It serves as our stereo, and I run our family web site and a couple of low volume mailing lists off it. It only gets sluggish when I have way too many windows open.

but having a nice long(and heavily shielded) cable running to the trunk would be more effective because the space constraints aren't as big of a deal.

With processors so cheap, just have a separate machine up front running VNC or similar, and put something real in the back to do the work. In fact, aren't there such displays commercially available? As in flat-panels with a processor, video card, and etherent jack?

Really the cost of installing a high-quality shielded cable to move user input back and video

Actually, you do not need to emulate the OBD computer in order to make changes. As long as this in-dash PC has a COM port software like this [ross-tech.com] for VW and Audi vehicles can make any OBD/VAG controlled adjustments and record engine data in real time. Of course you can do this with a laptop but I can see the usefulness for those interested in performance tuning or adding another layer of security. Maybe like having to login to your car in order to start the engine.

VW/Audi 1.8T engine: standard 150-170BHP.
Half a day with Mike @ Jabbasport with his laptop and rolling road? 225BHP at the fly, with the dyno to prove it.
Driven one and it's very quick indeed. Handily, the same engine comes in a 225BHP variant with a larger turbo, so you're not even overstressing it.

I ride a motorcycle. The three times that I have come closest to death in my life were on the freeway when someone with a cell phone held to their left ear did not bother to do a head check before moving left into me. I started coding on PDP-8s and Alpha Micros and I'm all for CPUs everywhere, but I don't like this thing one bit.

If you wouldn't use it while riding a motorcycle, paying attention to the road and to other things around you with both hands on the steering mechanism, then you shouldn't use it in a car.

Totally agree. In fact, what keeps me from going back to a motorcycle is the appalling driving of cell phone users. I'm convinced some of them actually have a permanent set in their arms and a nokia-shaped depression in their faces. They also have IQs around room temperature. It's mostly dumbos like this that will USE in-car computers when moving because they are insufficiently intelligent to assess risk.

It's sad really - dinosaur evolution - ever bigger tin boxes to protect us from the morons that are allo

Yeah, The mp3's are great and all, so is the gps, but as the parent poster mentioned, this is dangerous for small vehicles. I can already see the car passing me then sharply turning right when the in-dash gps told him to, and just cutting my life short. I have already had a close call with a lady, driving a Lexus who just watched the icons on her gps, thinking it was a radar and it would tell her where the cars around here were. Now a gps that is user controled is even worse for me. No way I can abide that,

I have this fantasy where I hang a bag of large round rocks on my handle bars and toss them backwards into the windshields of those idiots. No signals (one hand is occupied) and absolutely no conception of the traffic around them. They feel entitled to do whatever they want apparently.

It's bad enough that people pull out on me all the time (no sense of speed) without cell phones. But I seriously feel the urge to kill when they're using a phone, putting on make up, reading or doing something else equally i

Its all very well having that lil DIN sized box in your dashbooard, and having all those features to hand but its absolutly useless cos theres no way to control it. Lets face it, the main reason you want a computer in the car is to play music or as some kind of satnav device. With no display or input devices it cant be used for that, and every car I've owned only had room for one DIN device. So where do you put the control/display devices?

I know they have a link to their little 7 inch monitors in the article, but again, where do you really put that? Cant go on the dash, its too big. Cant go on the front of the dash cos it would covers the air vents and the PC its connected to. And its a bit too easy for thieves to see.

I like that the computer is small and designed for use in a car, but its better off in the glovebox or under the dash, with a connection to a touchscreen flat panel in the DIN slot.

The best car computer/mp3 player I've seen so far is the Empeg player ( http://www.empeg.com ) but they stopped making them.

Since this unit looks to be replacing a head unit stereo, why would you want to use a sound processor like an ESS? I would think that an emphasis on sound quality would be the ultimate thing in a stereo situation. I know that the cabin of your car isn't the most efficent place for quality of sound, but you can still tell a lot. I'm no expert on sound chips, but IMHO, ESS isn't the top choice for high qulity sound.

You sound like one of those audiophiles. The ESS has a 16 bit ADC/DAC pair with sampling rates which exceed your hearing range. With this low harmonic distortion, the ESS should meet your bid requirements. Unless your hearing is more exceptional than mine, I don't know what you are complaining about.

The input rating of 10V to 26V may cause the computer to die when
starting the engine, so don't depend on this to run anything critical.
Do these guys even understand car battery specs? A good design should work
at least down to 7.2V [familycar.com]:
"Today's batteries are rated in cold cranking amps. This represents the
current that the battery can produce for 30 seconds at 0 degrees before
the battery voltage drops below 7.2 volts." Better designs such as the power supply in this
ECU device [wolfems.com.au] will work down to 6.5V.

This design error seems to be common. Out of three laptop 12V
adapters I've purchased, only one worked with an old battery (that was still good
enough to start the car). The worst is my most recent Xtend PowerXtender,
which is rated 12-16V and often refuses to work unless the engine is running -
very annoying when I'm waiting in the car and want to use my laptop.

This possibly goes without saying, but it is none too difficult to create a far better solution, for considerably less money, by buying components individually. Mini-itx.com is a good place to start. $1,200 for this is, frankly, too expensive.

It was Adam Osborne [wikipedia.org] who suggested the Osborne 1, their current model, was pedestrian compared to what they had in development. Their inventory piled up as everyone waited for the successor and the company ran out of money. He died not very long ago in fact.

Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid, but wouldn't the first nasty pot hole/speed bump kill the hard drive?
Have hard drive manufacturers made notebook drives able to withstand the extreme g forces that could be encountered in a vehicle on a day to day basis? Does someone have real experience/data having a hard drive last for any length of time in a car?

I've had a Neo35 with a 30G drive in my car for several years now, with no problems - and the Neo is CONSTANTLY accessing the drive - it doesn't really cache the data very well, and it uses the drive instead of NVRAM to store where it is in playing the song. I frequently run over dirt roads and potholes. My Neo does quite a bit better than my old CD changer, which would spaz whenever I hit a particularly bad washboard or pothole.

You must remember that what will kill the drive is a sudden, high-G shock. Now, your car is a large mass suspended in a shock-absorbing system (your tires and shocks (unless you are a ricer, in which case you remove the shocks and wrap rubber bands around your bling-bling wheelrims)). So any sudden, sharp shock your tires hit will be turned into a longer, less sharp shock by the time it reaches the hard disk.

Combined with OLED (organic light emitting diode) technology, this could be a killer app. OLED displays are a bit like LCD displays, except that they emit light rather than reflect it. They can be transparent in the areas they are not lit, and come in green and orange currently.

Imagine a head up display for your radio/cd/mp3... you could even move your speed- and odo-meters to the windscreen. Thinking further ahead, augmented reality displays will eventually be possible. I'd like to see a kind of mini-radar, that shows other cars near yours (a bit like on Daytona USA, the Sega arcade game). No more blind spots etc.

Personally I am looking forward to the release of this [opussolutions.com] system from here [opussolutions.com]. It doesn't have full specs, but it does include a power supply that monitors the input signals from the car and can perform power management functions.

I have been looking into this for a while, and the one linked does seem nice, and the same company makes some higher end models in case 266MHz isn't enough.

Seems like this little invention, along with a bit'o wireless gear, should let people swap music files in the safety and convenience of their own car. Car-2-car swapping networks would let you snag files from fellow commuters as long as you were all going the same speed during the download time. So a long commute down a steadily moving highway would make an excellent venue for file sharing. Only problem would be if the person you are connected to takes an early exit and breaks the link.

we're paying $1200 for this device that fits into the same space as our radio, so where do we put our radio?
I don't know about you, but sometimes I jsut want to hear my favorite station and laugh at the morning show personality.

The bus company who I travel to and from work on every day have fitted each bus with a PC. There's a flat screen display attached to the bulkhead behind the driver facing the passengers, and some unit, probably embedded, on the other side.

I believe it's going to be intergrated with GPS to give a read out of the current location and ETA. It's not working yet, so either displays an AMI BIOS boot message with no boot device, or just the bus company logo.

Once I get around to installing a PC in my car I think I'll go the route of a HUD. This way I'll be able to glance at the interface without taking my eyes off the road. I've noticed in the past that papers on my dash in certain places reflect a certain ammount on my windshield. It's enough to see the paper and the road at the same time during daytime. At night it's very hard to see the reflection. I figure that a decent LCD with a brightness adjustment would work wonders. Of course I would have to figure out how to reverse the characters since I would be looking in a reflection. The only issues I can think of is dust collection and heat damage during the summer. A cover would work nicely for the dust, but making it removable for the heat problem would be tough.

We are currently working on a version with faster processor speed. Please check back with us in a couple of months for more information.

These people should have learned the lesson Intel (coincidentally) learned. Don't announce faster products before they're released! All that does is cut into the sales of your current products. Why would I drop $1200 on this machine when I know it's faster successor will be out "in a couple of months"?

Uuuuh.. you can get an industrial form factor PC with CF drives and IDE headers for between $300-500. Mount it in the trunk, and run your I/O some other way. Don't see the appeal of the DIN mounting here.. especially with mp3 players rampant / cheap.

I'm waiting to install a Arcom Controls [arcom.com] board in the trunk, with 802.11 onboard so I can copy music from my home PC into the car transparently.

Put the PC in the trunk: it's more protected there and there is more room for all the things you might want to plug in. What should go into the dashboard is the user interface--a touch screen or an LCD and some buttons. A Bluetooth or WiFi-capable touch screen in an in-dash form factor, now that would be something useful.

Until then, you might be best off just sticking a Palm or PPC to your dashboard and having it talk wirelessly to your PC.

The package mentioned in the article includes software. You are not just paying $1200 for a box, you get the GPS software and the OS installed and configured. Also have any of you considered the whole issue with system power? If you notice there are not any AC outlet in your car. If you are considering a invert then you now have two heat sources to cool, plus you have to worry about draining your battery. These specialized systems come with DC to DC (because the computer PS just turns AC to DC anyway) power supplies that can sense when you power off your car. They also will shut the system down if they sense a low battery. If you want more power check out these PIII and PIV systems:

You slashdotters see this thing as a multimedia machine. I think their biggest market is the enterprise. Base-station in the truck with GPS, handheld connecting with bluetooth, GSM connection to the main office...
Think of all the shipping applications, visiting nurses, the guy recording the meter,...